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Diana Villiers Negroponte tries to encourage young women to enter public life, such as running for Congress or governor of their state.
And that's what she was doing Tuesday when she spoke to more than 350 women attending the ninth annual Women's Business & Leadership Conference at the Radisson Plaza Hotel.
"The routine can be grinding," and you must spend time away from your family, but the rewards are many, she said.
Negroponte knows the challenges and compensations of public life firsthand. She is senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, one of the oldest think tanks in Washington, D.C. For many years she has focused on international human rights issues.
Her husband, John D. Negroponte, is deputy secretary of state, the No. 2 position in the State Department. He is also a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq.
To prepare for public service, Diana Negroponte urged attendees to enroll in tough classes such as chemistry and math, courses that will sharpen their intellectual skills and instill confidence.
"Take them on the theory you will succeed," said Negroponte, who teaches at Fordham University in New York.
Whether in class or in the workplace, she said, women must work harder than anyone else and pay greater attention to detail.
"You have to have a gut of steel; just don't show it," she said. At the same time, women must avoid displaying emotion, particularly crying. Tears can cause a women to be labeled a "whiner," she said.
She pointed to women in history who were well-prepared and became great leaders, such Joan of Arc in 15th-century France, Indira Gandhi of India and Corazon Aquino in the Philippines.
Negroponte said she admired former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who has a doctorate in chemistry from Oxford University, because she worked to "master every fact, whether going to war against Argentina or dealing with the coal miners' strike."
At the conference, Nawanna Privett received the 2008 Martha Layne Collins Leadership Award. Privett is executive director of the Collaborative Center for Literacy Development and is a former president of the New Opportunity School for Women in Berea.
